Peter Milburn, operations manager, Whirlwind says, “We were aware that some traditional cutting methods may produce problematic issues for our new finishing process, potentially creating chipping, and flattening the embellishment with the pressure of the guillotine. We required a new cutting solution.

“We needed a solution that could cut card-thick stocks without pressure, and after thorough testing we chose the Horizon SmartSlitter.

“I was impressed with its quick changeover, as all the settings were servo driven. It is programmable, and therefore maintaining settings and templates is easy. Now we just recall the templates with a push of the button, so set up is less than a minute, providing significant productivity gains.

“It also offers flexibility, with slitting, cutting, scoring and creasing. So that provided for variation within the device.

“The backup service that Currie provided is second to none in this small finishing machinery segment, their technicians are strong in their area of expertise.”

Vince Pignataro, account manager, Currie Group, explains, “It is fully-automatic, and reads QR codes, and barcodes. It has its own memory, and pre-set for you. There is minimal setup time, so you can go from job to job quickly.

Whirlwind is a committed Horizon user, it already has a digital pre-collated booklet making online, Horizon HOF-400, which is online to a Horizon SPF-200L landscape booklet maker, with a FC-200L foredge trimmer.

Pignataro says, “Whirlwind can now produce pre-collated sets, and the system is intelligent enough to pick up the job, and know for example, this one has 5 sheets, this has 20 sheets and so on, in any variable combination of pre-collated sets for saddle stitched books. It is well catered for short-run work.”